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Monday, May 18, 2015

Michael Mulgrew: The better tests N.Y. kids deserve - NY Daily News

Michael Mulgrew: The better tests N.Y. kids deserve - NY Daily News:

The better tests N.Y. kids deserve



Tests that don’t bear scrutiny


It’s time to ring down the curtain on a long-running farce: New York’s current statewide standardized tests. These exams — administered last month — give parents misleading information, encourage schools to focus on test-prep rather than real learning and are all but useless to teachers, the people who need them the most.
Let’s look at the tests’ recent history. Are 80% of the New York State students proficient in reading (the 2009 tests) or fewer than 27% (the 2014 tests)?
And who bears the responsibility for progress or the lack thereof? When city scores on the state tests rose, despite the fact that teachers and other observers said the exams were too easy, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg took credit for the gain. When scores fell dramatically because of a new test and a political decision to set a very demanding passing score, Gov. Cuomo blamed teachers.
Meantime, independent of Bloomberg’s boasting and Cuomo’s alarmist jeremiads, the most reliable and consistent testing instrument in the nation — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — has shown modest but generally consistent gains in reading and math by New York City students.
This spring, hundreds of thousands of New York families demonstrated their unhappiness with the state’s testing regimen when they refused to let their children sit for these wasteful and wrong-headed state exams — having watched as weeks of their children’s regular class time and enrichment courses like art and music were lost to cramming for tests that provide such little value.
Parent unhappiness with the tests has reached unprecedented levels. On Long Island, Comsewogue reportedly had an opt-out rate of 82%, and Plainedge Middle School 74%. In New York City nearly three-quarters of the eligible children at the Earth School in Manhattan reportedly didn’t take the test, while more than one-third opted out at PS 321 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope.
While the UFT supported parents in their decision, we also know that there is a place for tests in our schools — but not the current tests provided under a $32-million contract with Pearson.
As a teacher, I relied on tests — but shorter, periodic assessments that I used to identify the areas where each of my students needed more instruction. If the state Department of Education really wants to help students, it must develop the capacity to create and manage its own array of tests that comply with federal mandates and state curriculum standards, yet are actually useful to teachers.
Unlike the current tests, which provide only a single score for each child in reading and math, these new tests must be able to identify each child’s strengths and weaknesses.
Also, unlike current exams, which are not returned until the school year is over, these new tests must be administered and scored in time for teachers to help kids in the areas where they are falling short.
In addition, if the state is to restore the confidence of both parents and teachers in the testing process, it must be transparent. Every question and its alternate answers must be publicly available when the test is complete, unlike today’s “gag order” that relieves Pearson from the necessity of releasing — and forbids teachers from even publicly discussing — most test questions, and subjects the state to a financial penalty if the questions get out.
A testing program that met these standards — and offered the opportunity to actually help students rather than just measure them by an artificial standard — could regain the support of both teachers and parents.
Would it be expensive? It would almost certainly cost more than the current annual average of $6.4 million the state pays Pearson, particularly considering that all-new questions would have to be created every year.
But in a state that invests more than $20 billion on aid to education, spending a few million more per year to provide teachers with a better tool to help their students is an investment worth making.
Mulgrew is president of the United Federation of Teachers.Michael Mulgrew: The better tests N.Y. kids deserve - NY Daily News: